Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Thanksgiving Traditions

Our family has a couple of Thanksgiving traditions that we love. One of them includes making a thankful chain each November. I like to start on the first of November and each evening at dinner have everyone write one thing they're thankful for on a strip of paper. Some years it works that way, and other times we just set aside an evening or two to work on it. We started this year's chain tonight during our family devotions time. I love it! Some of the the things we're thankful for are: our church, each other, our family in Arkansas, the mountains, John's job (tomorrow is his one year anniversary there), seeing a bear in Estes Park, our health, video games, friends, food to eat, and our home. Quite a list isn't it? We usually hang our thankful chain up in our kitchen and I try to leave it up until the next Thanksgiving (or until it stretches and fades). It's a good way to stay mindful of our many blessings.

Another favorite Thanksgiving tradition at our house is going out for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning...wearing our pajamas. So fun! We started this the first year we moved here and weren't able to go home for Thanksgiving. We were all a little blue and John decided to take us to IHOP to cheer us up. We love to eat breakfast out, but it's something we rarely do. I don't know why we decided to go in our pajamas, but we've done it several times and it's a much anticipated tradition for our kids. Sure, we get strange looks but we don't care, it's just FUN! And having a big breakfast makes it a little easier to wait for that mid-afternoon meal of turkey and dressing.

10 comments:

Thanksgiving Customs And Traditions are, indeed, worth reckoning to keep oneself abreast of the many interesting aspects of the occasion. So be it. A festival as old as Thanksgiving would of course have rich Customs And Traditions that are passed down through ages to posterity.Check out more Thanksgiving tradition here Thanksgiving Customs And Traditions

Love hearing about your traditions, Mer. Thanks for the website to check out, John. Since arriving in Arkadelphia, I've enjoyed T-day with the very first family I met since coming here. I've gotten to know their children, grandchildren and a really neat family from Dallas. Each year our table grows welcoming new faces into our midst.

LOL I LOVE the eating out in pajamas thing! What a fun tradition. We have several traditional foods we make for our Thanksgiving meal (sloppy dressing, sweet potato casserole with mashmallows on top, turkey brined in a citrus brine); we also draw a large tree with leafless branches on butcher paper and tape it to the wall in the dining room. Throughout the month of November (earlier if we remember to start early) we write out things we're thankful for on leaves made from fall-colored construction paper, then tape them to the tree. By Thanksgiving Day our tree usually has more leaves than it can hold, with piles of leaves at the base of the tree as well. Anyone who comes to our house while we have the tree up is also invited to write out a leaf (or three!). When we put our Christmas decorations up, I take down the Thanksgiving tree and store it in a mailing tube. It's fun to take out past trees and see all of the thankful leaves.

We did a leaf garland last year with something we were thankful for on each leaf and hung it in our sunroom - I don't think it made it there for a year, but it was long enough that Todd was begging me to take it down.

About Me

I'm a forty-something wife and mom and live with my husband and three children along Colorado's gorgeous Front Range. This blog is a bit like a family scrapbook for me. It's a place I write about the things I love. Welcome!